


baby love me lights out

by nightwideopen



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bingo, Bioluminescence, Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019, Clint Barton Bingo 2019, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Avengers, Dubious Science, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Protectiveness, WinterHawk Bingo 2019, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:01:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20067472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwideopen/pseuds/nightwideopen
Summary: “Oh my God.”They’re in Bruce’s lab with most of the lights out, watching Clint emit bright white light that’s started to fade just a little bit, but not enough because he’s still, for all intents and purposes, bioluminescent.“Yeah, Tony,” Bucky says flatly, “‘Oh my God’ definitely covers it.”





	baby love me lights out

**Author's Note:**

> **BBB Square Filled:** Protectiveness
> 
> **CBB Square Filled:** Kidnapping
> 
> **WHB Square Filled:** Free Space

The problem with Hydra is that they never know when to give the fuck up. 

Bucky informs everyone of this when Clint is finally asleep, leaning heavily into his metal shoulder and snoring soundly. 

“Well,” Steve announces, in that Cap voice that Bucky has teased him for since 1943, “Neither do we.”

Bucky makes a face at Steve, who flips him off in return. It’s fair, a fair response. Bucky smirks. Then he looks down at Clint, runs his fingers through the tangled blond strands that have fallen over his forehead. He’ll only need a few butterfly stitches where his lip split, some ice for his ribs. By all accounts, Bucky should be grateful that it wasn’t worse, but even now he’s vibrating with rage at the fact that they thought they could take something _else_ from him. 

It wasn’t the first time they had tried to snatch Clint in a futile effort to get their beloved Asset back, but this was the first time they actually got him. He was just trying to go _home_. One moment, he was on the phone with Bucky telling him about all the new kids that signed up for his summer archery class and the next, Bucky could hear him screaming for help in between gruff commands and threats.

Clint was missing for 76 hours, and after the 24 hour mark Bucky had started trembling. He hadn’t meant to, but he knows how quickly they work and couldn’t stop imagining what they might have been doing. After 36 hours Bucky nearly took off on his own, and Tony had to shackle his ankles together in cuffs that not even Bucky’s adamantium arm could snap. Hydra would never kill Clint, Bucky knows that, and somehow the thought of that was even scarier. So Bucky holds him close, breathes him in, and lets him rest. That’s really all he _can_ do. For now. 

Tony wrinkles his nose when Clint snorts in his sleep. 

“This is getting ridiculous,” Bucky says belatedly. “Don’t they get it by now? I’m not theirs anymore.”

Natasha appears from the front of the jet and finds her way to the corner that Bucky has tucked himself and Clint into. She smiles sideways at his possessive move to shield Clint from her, but in all honesty he hadn’t realized he’d done it. He’s sure that she understands, though. She’d been the one protecting Clint long before Bucky came around. She runs a soothing hand through his hair, then through Clint’s. Her fingers move to the deep bruises on the inside of Clint’s elbow. And she looks… confused? She lets Bucky see that she’s confused. He realizes immediately what she’s thinking. Hydra doesn’t use needles for sedation. Hell, Hydra doesn’t use sedation at all, if they can help it. 

“It’s okay,” she says before Bucky can ask. “We’ll figure it out.”

Bucky nods, then lets himself slip into sleep as well, lulled by the warmth of Clint at his side. They’re safe for now. 

+

They get dropped off back at Clint’s apartment, after much begging from Clint, who had woken up and immediately shouted _Lucky! _Bucky agreed reluctantly, wishing for all the world that Clint would come live at the Tower. It’s infinitely safer, and would give Bucky some much needed peace of mind. But Clint insists on keeping his life as normal as possible, in spite of who he’s with, who his friends are. He doesn’t want to give it up, and Bucky understands that, so he doesn’t mention it after the first time.

“Lucky boy! Hey!”

Once Lucky is content with licking every inch of Clint’s face thrice over and Clint is able to stand up, he gets a slap upside his head from Kate.

“Ow!”

“Would you stop getting _kidnapped?_” she exclaims rather reasonably. 

Bucky stays silent. 

“This was the first time!”

Kate groans. “You’re insufferable. Come here.” And she gives him a tight hug. “I seriously don’t know how you’ve managed to live an entire thirty years. Dumb luck really is your style.”

Clint smiles, bops her on the nose. “Thanks for watching my dog.”

“Watching Lucky isn’t a _chore_,” Kate reminds him. “He’s the best dog in the world. I’m still planning on dognapping him.”

“Well if he’s anything like me, you’re sure to succeed soon.”

Kate slaps him again. Then she hugs him again. Then she leaves with a salute at Bucky.

“Bye, Kate.”

Clint sighs. “Isn’t she the best?”

He turns around with a goofy sideways grin on his face. Bucky can’t help but throw an arm around Clint’s neck and pull him down to Bucky's height. 

“You’re so stupid,” he says fondly. “Pizza?”

Clint grins even wider. 

“I lied,” he says. “_You’re _the best.”

+

Clint falls into his bed with no grace whatsoever. He’s mostly fine on the surface, except for the cuts and scrapes that Bruce mended, so there’s no need to be extra cautious. Still, Bucky wishes that he’d be more careful. Lucky has no such wish, and steps all over Clint’s stomach and thighs and Clint is laughing but Bucky knows that it hurts. He doesn’t say anything because he knows Clint would make _that_ face and they’d probably end up fighting about it. Clint can handle pain, Clint can hold his own, he’s not breakable or fragile or helpless because he’s a measly little civilian human with no super powers. 

“Are you gonna stay?”

There’s a whine to his voice that makes it less of a casual question and more of non-negotiable request. Bucky smiles softly, rubbing a thumb over Clint’s forehead where there’s a bruise. Clint grabs his wrist and keeps it there, eyes soft and pleading.

“Yeah, I'll stay. I'm sure Steve will let me off the hook for debrief this once.”

It’s bullshit. Bucky hardly ever goes to debrief. He’s pretty sure that Steve is the only one who actually does. He’s the only one that ever _talks_ anyway–

Clint laughs, hard. “Don’t get in trouble on my account.” 

But he doesn’t move to release Bucky’s hand from the grip he has on it.

“It’s fine, really.”

Bucky climbs into the bed, fully dressed and entirely prepared for a night of watching Clint sleep just to make sure he stays breathing, to make sure no one breaks _in_. The nap he had on the jet should be enough to hold him over until tomorrow night, or until he convinces himself to let his guard down for long enough to close his eyes at the very least. 

“Watch night?” Clint asks wistfully. 

It’s not disappointed, or accusatory. He understands. He’s just making sure.

Bucky nods, patting Lucky’s head which has landed on his thighs, and lifting his right arm for Clint to get closer. He does, and Bucky knows that his tac gear can’t be the most comfortable pillow, but Clint never complains. Neither does Lucky. 

Though he’s not sure Lucky would even if he could.

Bucky leans over to shut off the lamp on Clint’s bedside table. (He doesn’t know why Clint has a lamp, it’s not like he reads before bed.) And even though Bucky (who does read before bed) is already blocking most of the light from Clint’s face, Clint (someone who can fall asleep almost anywhere) prefers complete darkness in his room.

Bucky flips the switch on the lamp.

And the room gets lighter.

“Hey.” Clint paws at Bucky's stomach. “Shut that off. S’too bright.”

Bucky turns around to find the source of the light (because it certainly isn’t the lamp) and is met with… 

Clint.

It’s Clint.

He’s glowing in the dark.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Bucky laments. 

Clint can’t hear him, but the rumble of Bucky’s voice stirs him.

“Buck?” Clint cracks one eye open. “Can you turn off the–?” He looks down at his hands. “Oh. Oh fuck. Oh, what the fuck? Really?”

+

“Oh my God.”

They’re in Bruce’s lab with most of the lights out, watching Clint emit bright white light that’s started to fade just a little bit, but not enough because he’s still, for all intents and purposes, _bioluminescent_.

“Yeah, Tony,” Bucky says flatly, “‘Oh my God’ definitely covers it.”

“Well that explains the needle marks,” Natasha supplies less-than-helpfully.

“How…” The fact that Bruce sounds flabbergasted doesn’t help. 

“Why would they even need to _do_ this?” Tony asks.

Bucky laughs. “They don’t need a reason. They do it just to see if it’s possible. They try and try until it works and then they move onto something else.”

“I think the question is,” Bruce says slowly as they all turn towards Clint. He’s poking at his bare stomach with a look of plain confusion. “_What_ did they do?”

Clint looks up, pulls his shirt back down. The sad resignation on his face is enough to make Bucky want to storm over and shut him up. Whatever he’s about to say, he’s not going to want to say it, and that makes Bucky not want to hear it. 

“I, uh, I remember a bit. If you guys wanna hear.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Not if you don’t wanna tell us.” Tony makes an aborted move to speak. “Don’t, Tony, just don’t.”

“You’re such a buzzkill when Steve’s not around.”

“Hey,” Bucky snaps, “I’m a buzzkill when he is around, too.”

And that’s not… not what he meant to say. Nor is it helpful. He meets Clint’s eye, shakes his head stiffly. His head’s all fuzzy from stress and worry and relief all at once. He can’t _do_ this. Bucky cares about Clint more than he cares to admit – to Clint or to anyone else besides Natasha who’d guessed it before he even realized it for himself – and he hasn’t yet had enough practice of love and loss and how to cope with it. Five years may sound like enough time to wrap his head around things, especially since Steve has taken to the future so effortlessly. But the seventy other years that chipped away at his psyche are far more prevalent. And Clint stumbled into his life probably before he was ready, but he’d known then and he knows now that Clint is worth holding onto. He’s worth protecting. And if Bucky can’t do that–

Clint just pouts back. 

So Bucky crosses the room, ignores Bruce and Tony’s fiddling and mumbling and rhetorical questions, and presses his forehead against Clint’s.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “This is because of me and I’m really sorry. Don’t let them pressure you, okay? We’ll fix this regardless.” 

Clint huffs a laugh and tangles his fingers in the hem of Bucky’s shirt. 

“It’s not your fault. And it wasn’t that bad; they had me under most of the time. Well, not–” He makes a face. “Besides, it’s not the worst thing that could’ve happened? It’s actually kind of cool. I’m like a human glow stick.”

Bucky steps back and rolls his eyes. Clint doesn’t let him get far, and tugs Bucky back between his legs. 

“You would think it’s cool, you idiot. _Bioluminescent_. Who even–”

“It doesn’t matter,” Clint insists. “I’m safe, I’m not hurt, and we’re okay. Okay?”

Bucky nods. The lights are still dimmed enough that Clint’s light is visible. Visible, but fading.

“Are you hungry?”

Clint’s stomach makes an angry sound. It’s ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous, and it dissolves them both into a fit of laughter that ends in tears.

“Hey!” Tony interrupts. “Hey, Human Torch 2.0, you fit to be a guinea pig or what?”

Clint winces.

“_Stark–_” Bucky warns. 

“Yeah, alright. Just a blood sample while Jarvis does some scans, then you two can head upstairs and… do whatever the hell it is you two do together.”

It’s odd, how well Clint takes to his new quirk. Though, Bucky has to admit that bioluminescence is preferable to a metal arm, seventy years of brainwashing and cryostasis. Clint got lucky, and Bucky is grateful for that.

Clint makes Bucky keep all the lights out in his room, watches as the glow from his body grows dimmer.

Bucky finally takes off his tac suit now that he’s in his own room, pulling on a hoodie that probably belonged to Steve at one point. He flops down onto the bed beside Clint and gathers him up in his arms. Clint is warm from his shower, hair damp and sweet smelling. It’s Bucky’s favorite Clint. 

“Are you gonna eat?” he asks softly.

“Nah.” Clint pulls the covers back over both of their heads. “Too tired.”

It’s quiet for a moment as Bucky counts Clint’s heartbeats.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Clint sighs and tenses all at once. 

“A little.”

“Too tired?”

Clint nods. “Too tired.”

+

It’s two days before Tony and Bruce call them back down to the lab. It’s quick work, all things considered, and two days doesn’t seem like long compared to the time Steve ate a spiky alien worm on a dare and they couldn’t figure out an antidote for his hallucinations.

In Bucky’s defense, Sam had dared him to dare Steve.

Either way, it’s the longest two days of Bucky’s life. 

Clint turns off the lights in every room he enters, eats every meal like it’s his last, and acts as though there isn’t Nazi induced poison running through his veins.

Bucky’s just trying to eat lunch – a beautifully made risotto if he does say so himself – and then it’s suddenly pitch dark in the kitchen. He can hear Clint whistling before he can see the bright light in his periphery and he nearly throws his spoon at Clint’s head.

“_Hey_ Bucky.”

Clint comes around the kitchen island to wrap his arms around Bucky’s neck. It’s sweet. It’s _too_ sweet. But Bucky has long since learned that Clint is just like that sometimes. They both established quickly that there's no room in their relationship for hidden agendas and ulterior motives. As much as it feels like pulling teeth, communication is the only way they can get through all the shit they’ve already gotten through. And Bucky knows that it’s going to keep them going through all the rest of the shit that inevitably comes their way.

Like this. 

“You okay?” Bucky asks around a spoonful of pasta.

Clint hums. “Fine.”

He goes quiet. ‘Fine’ isn’t anything a bit of food can’t fix.

“There’s some more in the pot if you want.”

“You know me so well.” 

Clint scampers off to fill a bowl, using the light from his body to guide him. Bucky can barely see his own food now that Clint is on the other side of the room.

And it’s… becoming tiresome.

But he doesn’t say anything until Clint is seated, content, and full of food.

“I wish you’d stop acting like nothing happened,” he admits with no preamble. Band-aid. It’s the only way he can do this. “Something really terrible happened to you and you won’t talk about it and you’re acting like– It’s not okay, what they did to you. Please stop acting like it.”

And Bucky has never seen Clint get angry, not in the entire time he’s known him.

He gives Bucky a sad smile, then puts his hand out for Bucky to take. Bucky gives him the metal hand and goes along easily when Clint tugs him off of his chair and pulls him along to the elevators. They ride in silence, Bucky glancing over every few seconds to see if Clint is looking at him. But Clint is just watching the numbers, watches as the doors slide open to Bucky’s floor.

“What are you–”

Clint shushes him. “Sit on the couch for a second, okay?”

Bucky does without complaint. Mostly because he’s tired. And worried. And irrationally bothered that Clint isn’t either of those things.

Predictably, Clint shuts the lights in the apartment so that it’s pitch dark save for the light that Clint himself is emitting. Bucky notices for the first time that light doesn’t come from his face, mostly just his torso and arms. It filters through his shirt and casts a flashlight-esque glow under his chin. Bucky hates to admit it but he looks beautiful like this. Radiant.

Clint settles next to Bucky on the sofa, takes Bucky’s metal hand in his again and is just quiet for a long moment. 

“I know you’re worried.”

“I’m not–”

“Hey,” Clint cuts him off. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m not mad. I’m just saying. You’re worried. You make that face when you’re worried.”

Bucky didn’t know he made a worried face. 

“Okay,” he relents. “Fine. I’m worried. What if they can’t figure out how to fix this thing?”

Clint huffs a sigh, short and deliberate like he’s thought about this in detail and he _knows_ what Bucky’s going to say. 

“They hurt you. Badly. For a long time.” He’s being so careful with his words. “And it was horrible and unfair and I promise you that it makes me _so angry_. Everyday. You didn’t deserve it. But you have to hear me when I say that I’m okay.” He sighs again, softer this time. “I’d tell you if I wasn’t. And I appreciate you being angry and worried, I _really_ do. But you guys were amazing and found me fast and it doesn’t hurt me. I’m not hurt. I’m just trying to make the best of a shitty situation. You know me; that’s what I do. So just… I just want you to stop worrying. We’re okay. And if Tony can’t fix it then it’s not the worst thing in the world, okay? I can live with it. I’m showing you that I can live with it how you live with your arm. Like, fuck them for giving it to you but it’s yours now. You own it. You use it to be gentle and good in spite of how you got it, and I want to do the same, alright? Can you let me?”

Bucky nods carefully, holding his breath. He can’t feel Clint’s hand on his but he can see how tight he’s squeezing it as his knuckles go white. He wants Bucky to hear what he’s saying. 

“Yeah.” Bucky nods again. “I’m sorry.”

Clint smiles, bright and thankful. And that’s Bucky’s favorite thing to elicit from him. So Bucky smiles back and pulls him in none-too-gently for a kiss. It’s hardly a kiss, with both of them grinning as stupidly as they are. But it’s perfect anyway, because it’s Clint. The moment is broken by the elevator door sliding open to reveal a frazzled Tony Stark.

“Come down to the lab.”

Bucky eyes him suspiciously. “I’m going to assume that you getting off your ass and actually coming to get us instead of just asking Jarvis to call us down means good news?”

Tony makes a ridiculously indecipherable expression and pairs it with finger guns.

“You bet your cyborg ass it does.”

+

“So, the human body is already bioluminescent. Weird, I know.” Tony takes a bite of a comically large sandwich. “But we all emit light that’s visible under certain conditions, obviously not to the naked eye. It’s not bright enough. It fluctuates throughout the day based on circadian rhythm and metabolic rate and all that good stuff. We know that Mr. Bottomless Pit here is just constantly eating but his metabolism just eats it all up and he’s also debatably nocturnal. That’s why he glows like, real bright at night and not as much during the day. His body assumes it’s gonna be out doing stuff. Y’know?”

Bucky doesn’t know. But he watches as Tony sticks Clint with an 18 gauge needle. 

“Fucking hell,” Clint complains.

Bucky runs his flesh hand through Clint’s hair. “You’re fine.”

“I mean, I am,” Clint agrees through gritted teeth, “But needles are the fucking worst.”

They both simultaneously realize that Tony hasn’t stopped talking.

“— figured they must’ve injected you with a bastardized version of luciferin and luciferase to exacerbate what’s already there. Which, there really isn’t any way to reverse but we could – well not really transfuse your blood ‘cause you haven’t lost any – but we’re gonna draw your blood and put new blood in to flush it out. ‘Cos your heart just keeps pumping it round and round it’s not really dissolving or being absorbed for nutrients because it’s synthetic and your body doesn’t… need it. Carousel enzymes, if you will. So: blood swap.”

Clint makes a face. “I’m not sure how I feel about someone else’s blood being in me.”

“Clint, you’ve had at least six blood transfusions in the entire time I’ve known you,” Bucky informs him. “They do it every time you end up in the hospital.”

“Oh.”

“It’s Bucky’s blood anyway,” Bruce interjects. “I’m sure you’re… _familiar _with his bodily fluids.”

“I am,” Clint says shamelessly. “But that’s not the point.” He looks up at Bucky. “Isn’t the serum in your blood?”

Bucky nods. The serum makes him a universal donor, just like Steve. “It’s not potent enough in my blood to make you a super soldier. I mean, we can hope, so you stop getting so badly injured so often, but it’ll probably get eaten by your body in like, three days or so.”

Tony finishes fiddling with the blood bags and the wires and shoots Clint a soft smirk. 

“Unlike the luciferin, your body is probably going to want to absorb as much of the serum as possible to wherever it can get it to.”

“Hey Jarvis?” Clint requests quietly. “Can we shut the lights one last time?”

“It might not work,” Tony reminds him.

Clint nods. “Still.”

The lab falls into relative darkness, Clint lighting up the space between them. Bucky takes his hand and makes sure Clint keeps his eyes on him, rather than the blood going in one arm and out the other. It takes a while, and every few minutes Jarvis scans Clint’s body and updates them on the percentage of luciferin in his system. It doesn’t start to go down until after the third bag of blood is transfused and they all breathe a collective sigh of relief. 

Well, all of them except Clint.

“You okay?” Bucky asks him, low enough that Tony and Bruce can’t hear.

Clint shrugs.

“It was kind of cool having a super power for a few days. I wasn’t just _the regular guy_, you know? And I know I’m not even an Avenger, but I hang out with you guys enough. And it’s kind of intimidating. Being unenhanced, normal.”

“Clint, you’re not normal by anyone’s standards,” Bucky reminds. “Circus boy who specializes in archery and forcibly buys apartment buildings from unsuspecting Russian mafias.” 

Clint just shrugs again, still looking put out. So Bucky crouches beside the reclined lab chair, where he’s mostly at Clint’s eye level. He guesses it’s his turn to give the comforting speech. But this is the easy part, telling Clint how amazing he is. All he has to do is be honest, list off all the reasons that Bucky fell in love with him in the first place. 

“You know I won't love you any more or less if you were enhanced or a genius or a superhero, right?” he whispers insistently. “Everything that’s great about you lies in who you are as a person, not what you can do… You know what?” Bucky backtracks a bit. “You’re already a superhero. You do what’s best for everyone around you no matter the personal cost. Sometimes you bend the rules to do what you have to do; because you’re inherently good and it’s second nature for you to look after people whether you care about them or whether they’re complete strangers. You don’t have to be able to fly or punch through a brick wall to be a superhero, you know that? You’re already a superhero, Clint. Ask anyone who loves you. We all love you for the same reason. It’s because you’re just a regular guy doing superhero things everyday.”

While Bucky gushes on and on about Clint, the light slowly starts to fade from his body until they’re back in the pitch blackness that comes with a lights-out room. 

“J?” Tony calls. “Mind lighting us up here?” 

The lights come back on, and Clint’s eyes look a little bit redder than when they started. He nods at Bucky, not saying anything but Bucky knows that he’s grateful. Bucky doesn’t know how much he actually believes it, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

Steve and Natasha had apparently joined them at some point, and Bucky lets go of Clint’s hand in favor of letting him grab at Natasha for a hug. She helps him out of the chair – a chair that’s painfully generic that Bucky had hardly wanted to picture Clint in – and leads him towards the elevators with one arm around his waist. 

“Thanks Tony,” he says belatedly. “Bruce.”

“Anytime big guy.”

“Bye, Clint.”

He brushes Bucky on his way past. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

Bucky spares a glance at Natasha.

“I’ve got him, _lapochka_. Don’t worry.”

When Natasha whips out her pet names and platitudes, Bucky knows to believe her. So he watches them go and then falls heavily into one of the sofas along the wall. Steve follows him close behind. They haven’t properly talked since Bucky was shaking apart in his arms not knowing if he’d ever see Clint again. 

“He’s gonna be okay.”

“Yeah.” Bucky scoffs. “Until someone gets to him again in order to get to me.”

“That’s not–”

“Don’t say it’s not gonna happen again Steve. Just me being with him puts him in danger. He won’t come live here where it’s safer and I can only stay at his apartment so many nights in a row without it looking like I moved in.”

Steve laughs softly and squeezes Bucky’s knee. 

“Why don’t you?”

“What?”

“Move in with him, idiot.”

Bucky blinks. “I…” He hadn’t even thought of that. He hadn’t even thought of asking. “Guess I didn’t think I could.”

“You’ve been together for two years, Buck. I think it’s safe to say you’re serious enough to live together.”

And Bucky knows it’s bad when Steve is being the relationship guru.

“Fuck you, Steve.”

Bucky jumps off of the sofa and beelines for the elevator, heart lighter in his chest. 

“You’re welcome!” Steve calls after him.

+

He doesn’t end up finding Clint, but he should’ve suspected that he wouldn’t be able to since he’d gone off with Natasha. 

What he does end up doing is making ravioli, just so he has something to do with his hands. It calms him down, gives him time to think about what he’s going to say. Plus, Clint loves ravioli. 

On the one hand, it’s terrifying because as all modern signs seem to point to, it’s a really big step in a relationship. Bucky never had the chance to have a relationship that lasted this long, outside of Natasha. But that’s off the table now, even if he wasn’t with Clint. And he loves this, loves having Clint in his life. 

On the other hand, as much as he respects Clint wanting to keep his life as normal as possible, Bucky wouldn’t mind having Clint in his space. He _wants_ him to be. Having an extra toothbrush in his en suite bathroom isn’t the same as saying _let’s go home_ and having he and Clint think of the same place. Not to mention Bucky's recurring reason that it’s infinitely safer here. 

And he’s been offering for Clint to move in for months, but he never once thought how much better he might feel if it was the other way around.

Bucky’s so deep in his head by the time Clint returns that he doesn’t even hear him come in, just the sound of a stool sliding across the floor. Clint is there, with a sheepish hunch to his shoulders. 

“Whatcha making?”

Bucky turns back to the food to hide his smile. “Ravioli.”

“Hm.” Clint is tapping incessantly at the linoleum. “Can I help?”

“I’m almost done but yeah. Come on.”

If it were anyone else – Steve, if it were Steve – Bucky would complain about personal space and elbow room. But as it is, he lets Clint paste himself to Bucky’s side as he picks up a tiny square of dough and starts stuffing it with meat and cheese. Sometimes Bucky forgets that Clint isn’t all thumbs, and that his klutzy airheaded routine is mostly to throw people off the scent of his competence. It’s taken Bucky years and years to develop the delicate dexterity in his prosthetic hand in order to do something of this scale, but to Clint it comes naturally. He hums idly as he works on two, three raviolis, and suddenly Bucky is overwhelmed just by the presence of him.

In a good way.

“So I was thinking,” Bucky starts, “About how you don’t want to move in here.”

Clint groans. “We’ve talked about this, Buck. I can’t. I don’t want to. I can’t leave the tenants and Katie. What if the Russians–”

Bucky puts a hand over Clint’s mouth.

“Relax. I’m not asking you to. I know you don’t want to. I was just thinking, I’d feel a lot better if we _did_ live together. But it doesn’t have to be here.”

Clint’s eyebrows quirk in confusion, but he makes no move to talk, as Bucky’s hand is still firm on his face. Bucky can see the exact minute he realizes what Bucky is asking, and his face does nothing short of light up. He starts nodding, and Bucky can feel the grin under his hand, so he starts nodding to.

“Okay?” he asks tentatively, taking his hand back.

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Please. Me, you and Lucky. I’d love that.” 

“And Alpine,” Bucky reminds him.

“And Alpine.”

Bucky drops the dough from his other hand and gets his arms around Clint’s waist as quick as he can. He thinks he’s squeezing too tight, but Clint doesn’t say anything, just rests his chin on Bucky’s head and hugs him back. And it’s not Bucky’s fault when he just _has_ to tilt his head back just enough as an invitation for a kiss. Clint doesn’t complain about that either, and acquiesces enthusiastically, the kind of kiss that Bucky knows means that he’s happy. That Clint loves him. That this is the best thing in their lives and they don’t want to give it up for anything.

Clint licks Bucky’s nose.

“Disgusting,” Bucky says, but he’s laughing so it doesn’t count.

“I’m starving.”

“Okay, fine. Go ahead, finish those up and I’ll put them in the pot.”

Once the ravioli is safe and boiling, Bucky turns to Clint. It’s hard to imagine that just a few days ago he’d been missing, out of Bucky’s reach and in danger. Now he’s here, real and solid and grinning like an idiot, and Bucky intends to keep it that way. He swats at Clint’s arm to get his attention. Clint meets his eyes, wide and bright. 

“We’re getting a Roomba.”

The sound of pure joy that Clint lets loose is worth it.

“Deal.”


End file.
